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Art: Nevan Lahart

Nevan Lahart is the joker in the RHA pack of young Irish artists, says Cristin Leach

When the Irish Hospice Foundation approached visual artists to design playing cards for its 2001 charity project Art:pack, they turned to musicians to create the jokers. Gavin Friday produced a lewd cartoon sketch and Bono responded with an image of himself with a hand-scribbled joke: “How many singers does it take to change a light bulb? A million: one to change the bulb and the rest to revolve the world around him.”

The move had marketing advantages, but it also pointed to the fact that few visual artists could be asked to make fools of themselves, even for charity. Musicians, it seems, are more prepared to be the butt of their own jokes.

The rest of the pack featured the usual suspects — Robert Ballagh, Pauline Bewick, Sean Scully, Alice Maher — as well as two names, Stephen Brandes and Jeanette Doyle, who have since joined the ranks of another select art